The BrahMos missile, which destroys Pakistan’s aircraft during Operation Sindoor, has become one of the most deadly supersonic missiles in the world. Taking forward this legacy of creating a terrible demolition in the enemy’s camp, India is now ready to accelerate the development of its next generation hypersonic cruise missile BrahMos-II. The development process of BrahMos-II has gained momentum after DRDO achieved significant progress in indigenous scumjet engine technology.
According to sources, this advanced BrahMos-II missile will have the speed Mac 8 (8 times more than the speed of sound). And it is being designed in this way so that its firepower is 1,500 km.
The maximum speed of the existing BrahMos is 3.5 Mac. Its firepower ranges from 290 to 800 kilometers. The BrahMos missile is currently one of the fastest supersonic cruise missiles in the world. BrahMos-II Hyper will be a sonic missile. Supersonic cruise missiles ranges from 1 to 5 Mac. While hyper sonic missiles have speed from 5 to 12 Mac.
According to defense sources, a high-level discussion between India and Russia on the joint development of BrahMos-II is going to resume. The hypersonic cruise missile aims to achieve more than Mac 6 speed and will be inspired by Russia’s 3m22 Zircon missile, a scramjet-powered hypersonic missile and nuclear power-rich missile.
The BrahMos-II project, which was conceptualized by the BrahMos Aerospace almost a decade ago, had to face several obstacles earlier. These obstacles included Russia’s reluctance and high cost of sharing advanced hypersonic technology with India.
The BrahMos-II project was first announced in 2008 and it was expected that its trial would be done by 2015. However, the project was delayed due to several reasons. In which Russia could not share a technique of more than 300 kilometers in the beginning, being a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the situation changed after India became a member of MTCR in 2014.
But the increasing interest and competition towards advanced hypersonic weapons in the world again created interest in the project. Due to which both countries (India-Russia) are moving towards increasing cooperation to strengthen their strategic defense.
The BrahMos missile that the country has right now is the result of BrahMos Aerospace (established in 1998), a joint venture between India and Russia. It is considered the world’s fastest supersonic cruise missile, capable of reaching a speed of existing BrahMos missile Mac 3.5 and can cover a distance of 290 to 800 km. It is part of the fleet of the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force and is designed for operating use of land, water, air and submarine.
(Stain and forget-Fire-Rand-Forget) The technique has made this missile one of the most important weapons of India’s defense strategy, which was used in Operation Sindoor where BrahMos hit all its targets.
What will be the fire power of BrahMos-II?
The speed of BrahMos-II will be between 6 to 8 Mac. That means about 8,600-10,000 km/h. This missile will be able to kill for a distance of 1500 km.
This will continuously fly at hypersonic speed and destroy the target.
Its design will be inspired by Russia’s 3m22 zircon, which runs at a speed of Mac 9 and is included in the Russian Navy.
BrahMos-II will have a scumjet engine, which is more advanced than the current BrahMos Ramjet system.
Its design will be inspired by Russia’s 3 M22 Zircon, which blows at the speed of Mac 9 and is included in the Russian Navy.
BrahMos-II is likely to weigh about 1.33 tonnes, which is about half of the air-launched BrahMos-A (2.65 tons).
It can be installed in several aircraft with India’s indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA) Tejas Mark 2.
In April 2025, DRDO successfully tested the combuster of the scumjet engine for more than 1,000 seconds. This achievement is a decisive step towards India’s hypersonic missile capabilities.